Eighteen Reasons to Develop a Unique Customer Experience

If after going through this list of eighteen you walk away thinking you don’t have any of these issues, believe me you are in trouble.
Having worked in the customer experience area for the last 12 years I haven’t come across one business that doesn’t have at the very least one of these issues.
Keeping that in mind, the next question you should be asking is:- how much are these issue/s costing? AND if I need to address them, what do I need to do?
I will be assisting you to answer those two questions during the next few weeks but first let’s identify the issues.The Top Eighteen Issues-
1) Customer loyalty on the decline– Customer loyalty is on the decline due to the share amount of choice we now have and the inability of business to exceed our expectations.
2) A lack of customer recommendation– Customers are less likely to recommend a business to others due to the fact that few are delivering an experience that exceeds expectations. Just meeting customers’ expectations is not enough to gain a recommendation.
3) High Employee disengagement– 61 percent of employees in NZ reluctantly get up in the morning and go to work disengaged. Disengaged employees don’t deliver great customer experiences and they have a negative impact on productivity
4) A lack of leadership skills- The culture of an organisation comes from leadership. Developing and leading a team and customer focused culture is a vital component of any successful business.
5) Wrong people in the wrong seats– The key to any successful customer experience strategy is to have the right people delivering the experience. All too often we see the right experience being delivered by the wrong people, resulting in frustration from both the business and the customer.
6) No competitive advantages– You either have one and are not capitalising on it. OR you don’t have one and are not focusing on developing one OR you think you have one however your customers don’t think it’s one.
7) Increasing marketing cost- Most of us are aware that is costs on average 7 times more to attract a new customer rather than retain an existing one.
8) High staff turnover- The right people want to work for a business that has a culture that motivates them to professional develop and be the best they can be.
9) Difficulty attracting the right people– see “high staff turnover”
10) A price focus impacting margins-Everyday we are bombarded with price as the only competitive advantage business can come up with to gain a sale. Research shows that customers will pay more for a value added experience. Are you thinking of ways that you could add great value over and above a discount?
11) A lack on innovation & creativity- We all have the ability to think creatively. The issue is that many business environments and cultures don’t encourage this kind of thinking. The result is a market of copiers and followers resulting in a world of sameness.
12) A culture of following & copying– see above

13) A lack of customer focus- Many businesses think they are customer focus however when you look at their customer experience from the customers perspective it’s very clear they are more operationally focused than customer focused.
14) A siloed culture– Everyone within an organisation must understand that they all play a key role in the experience the business delivers to its customers. A siloed culture is not an option.
15) An inside-out focus– There is only one perspective you should be looking at your business with and that’s your customers. That’s what we call an outside –in perspective.
16) Customer unfriendly processes & systems– see above re outside out perspective
17) Not acting on customer feedback– customers are over giving feedback why, because nothing changes. Venting frustrations on social media has become today’s practise.
18) An inconsistent customer experience delivery– You will not grow customer loyalty and advocacy unless you deliver consistency.
All of the above issues are having an impact on the quality and consistency of your team and customer experience and ultimately growth and profitability.
By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator and the customer of 2020 will be more informed and in charge of the experience they receive. They will expect companies to know their individual needs and personalise the experience. – Customers 2020 Report
Keep an eye out for my follow up.
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Chris Bell is the Managing Director of Customer Experiences, a company committed to building successful businesses through the development of high quality customer experiences and co-founder of cemNZ www.cemnz.org.nz chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz 027 2792360